CIERRE DEL INTERNACIONAL 2014

Culmina un año con demasiadas novedades en política internacional. La continuidad y agravamiento de una crisis como la ucraniana, derivando en la secesión de Crimea y una guerra civil en tregua en el sudeste, junto a la fuerte irrupción de ISIS en la guerra civil siria, comprometiendo territorio iraquí, fueron los dos procesos más relevantes. De ambos, hubo impactos indeseables como la peor relación entre Occidente y Rusia desde la crisis yugoslava y la dificultosa posición de Turquía ante el conflicto sirio, además de la prosecución del largo e indefinido conflicto palestino-israelí. Respecto al hegemón mundial, Estados Unidos, empezó a recorrer la recta final de su segundo mandato, su Presidente, Barack Obama, pero esto no le impidió iniciar por primera vez en décadas, la negociación por el desarme nuclear con la Irán del moderado Rouhani y sobre el final del 2014, el fin del embargo norteamericano a Cuba. Con esos dos gestos, Obama recuperó cierta iniciativa política en el escenario internacional, la cual había sido opacada por su colega ruso Putin, el año pasado, en ocasión del desarme químico sirio y la desconfianza sembrada entre sus aliados occidentales, por los casos de espionaje. No obstante, el frente interno estadounidense luce complejo con episodios de violencia policial-racial en Missouri y reformas de políticas públicas prometidas pero no cumplidas, por parte del poder federal central, aunque la economía luce mucho mejor, con un dólar refortalecido. En el mundo asiático, volviendo al plano político, en la India, la elección de Narendra Modi, venciendo al Partido del Congreso de los Gandhi y la ratificaciòn de Abe al frente de una pre-revisionista Japón, fueron los acontecimientos que pueden marcar una nueva época, ya sacudida por el cambio del liderazgo chino, acosado brevemente por las protestas de Hong Kong. En Europa, los procesos separatistas escocés y catalán no lograron consumarse pero plantearon dudas serias sobre el futuro de la Unión, con eventuales triunfos de partidos opositores no tradicionales en Grecia y España, al comienzo y final de 2015, respectivamente. En América Latina, los electorados de Bolivia, Uruguay y Brasil, ratificaron a sus respectivos oficialismos, en una señal clara de que cierto malestar popular, no alcanza a plasmarse en votos. En Chile, reasumió el poder Bachelet en medio de la mayor crisis política histórica de la derecha, aún cuando las expectativas de reforma de la primera se van desvaneciendo prontamente- En Venezuela, Maduro reprimió severamente a la oposición pero empieza a vivir el aislamiento y erosión de su régimen. El Papa Francisco recorre su segundo año de mandato, con una buena imagen y algunos gestos de cambio hacia adentro de la Iglesia Católica, pero aún nada de ello se ha visto traducido en reformulaciones integrales del poder cardenalicio de Roma. En materia económica, la baja de las "commodities", pero sobre todo, el fuerte descenso del precio del petróleo, en el contexto de la revolución americana del fracking" y las sanciones a Rusia por su papel en la crisis ucraniana, fueron los datos relevantes. 

JORGE CASTAÑEDA, SOBRE MEXICO Y CUBA

JORGE G. CASTAÑEDA | POLÍTICO Y EXCANCILLER MEXICANO

“Uno no se pelea con los cubanos; ellos deciden cuándo”

El polémico intelectual mexicano presenta su autobiografía 'Amarres Perros'

LUIS PABLO BEAUREGARD diario el pais, madridMéxico 31 DIC 2014

Sobre la mesa de café de Jorge G. Castañeda (Ciudad de México, 1953) se encuentra una pila de libros de la revolución cubana y una vieja cajetilla de cigarros de colores gastados que dice Che. El biógrafo de Ernesto Guevara ha escrito otra biografía, la suya.Amarres perros es un extenso relato (630 páginas, Alfaguara) para explicar una vida llena de curiosidad intelectual y ambición por el poder. Desde las desventuras de un joven comunista hasta los días en el gabinete de Vicente Fox, donde Castañeda fue canciller (de 2000 a 2003) y pieza clave en el primer Gobierno de transición en México. A él se le debe un viraje en la política exterior. Muchos lo culpan del enfriamiento en las relaciones entre México y Cuba que, a pesar de los esfuerzos del PRI, no ha vuelto a ser lo que era.

Pregunta. Usted trató de que la cancillería fuera más pragmática y menos hipócrita. ¿Qué ha quedado de eso?

Respuesta. Muy poco. Hay cosas que hubieran podido quedar, más allá de las diferencias políticas, pero por la ineptitud o la desidia de los sucesores, o la falta de interés, no se hizo gran cosa. El ejemplo más obvio es la política cultural. Lo de derechos humanos cayó muchísimo, sobre todo con el PRI. No les interesa. La hipocresía le encanta a los priístas. Y a Felipe Calderón también. Esa idiotez de echar la culpa a los gringos porque venden armas es un reclamo muy hipócrita porque él sabía que no era cierto. Sabía que no había ninguna correlación entre la venta de armas y el aumento de la violencia.

P. ¿Qué tanto ha cambiado la relación de México con Cuba con el regreso del PRI?

P. ¿Suele anteponer los ideales a las amistades? Le pasó con Gabriel García Márquez.R. Calderón trató de ser amigo de los cubanos, pero ellos lo trataron con la punta del pie. Lo extraño es que el PRI también está siendo muy maltratado. Peña hizo la Cumbre Iberoamericana en un momento muy difícil. Y Raúl no solo no viene,sino que organiza que sus neocolonias tampoco vengan. No viene Maduro, no viene Ortega, no viene Evo y el salvadoreño se regresa a los dos minutos. Y resulta que no solo no los toman en cuenta en la negociación entre EE UU y Cuba, sino que lo hicieron a través de Canadá, con un Gobierno hostil a La Habana. Lo que trato de explicar en el libro es que uno no se pelea con los cubanos, ellos deciden cuándo se pelean contigo. Y si ellos decidieron pelearse, te jodiste.

R. Estoy seguro de que fue por Cuba. Me hizo una chingadera al publicar un artículo de muy pocos amigos en mi contra en una revista suya. Tenía todo el derecho, pero yo tenía todo el derecho de no dejarla pasar.

P. ¿Cree que la política exterior mexicana debe tener más peso?

R. Debe ser mucho más activa. México es un país muy insular con una clase política tremendamente provinciana.

P. Llama la atención que diga que no quería ser diplomático.

R. Buscaba el cargo, pero no porque me gustara la diplomacia. No es mi estilo. No tolero las cenas de Estado o con los colegas de otros países, sobre todo cuando te toca la esposa del canciller de Paraguay… era para pegarse un tiro. No tengo de qué hablar con ella. El small talk a mí no se me da.

P. Usted pidió al presidente Fox que lo sacara de la cancillería. Quería hacerse visible para ser candidato a la presidencia.

P. ¿Pudo haber sido un buen secretario de Educación pese a su cercanía con Elba Esther Gordillo?R. El cargo al que podía aspirar con mayor facilidad era ese. Me resultaba accesible porque no había nadie ni remotamente cercano a Fox que tuviera las relaciones en el mundo que tenía yo. A los otros cargos que me interesaban, Gobernación y Educación, la verdad es que era difícil.

R. Creo que algo hubiera podido hacer que la gente que estuvo ahí no hizo. Ahora tenemos este desastre completo. Nos quedamos como el perro del hortelano. Sin Elba y sin reforma educativa. Lo que hay es un chiste. No ha pasado nada ni va a pasar.

P. ¿Considera que Gordillo debería estar en libertad?

R. Con relación a los cargos que la acusan, sí. Se van a cumplir dos años y los dirigentes del sindicato no han querido ir a comparecer por el supuesto caso de lavado de dinero. Lo mismo pasa con la evasión fiscal. No pueden acusarte de ello antes de hacerte una auditoría, y la fiscalía no la ha presentado. En un país normal estaría en la calle. Eso no quiere decir que no pueda haber otros cargos.

En un país normal, Elba Esther Gordillo estaría en la calle 

P. ¿Ha pecado de protagonismo?

R. Sí, sobre todo en un país donde es mal visto decir, figurar, contradecir y confrontar.

P. ¿Descarta su regreso a la política?

R. Yo creo que sí. Debe haber un candidato independiente a la presidencia en 2018. No yo, gente joven, fresca y con más energía.

P. ¿Lo limita la edad?

R. No sé si soy demasiado radiactivo para mucha gente, tóxico como se dice ahora.

P. Peña Nieto ha tratado de ser pragmático, ¿qué opina de su Gobierno?

R. Los dos años de Peña prometían mucho y ahora estamos en el peor momento desde 1994. Su problema es que quiso ser un gran reformador apoyándose en y trabajando con las fuerzas más conservadoras del país. Incluyendo a los más ratas. Tiene todas las partes del rompecabezas, pero no tiene la foto que viene en la caja. Si lo arma saldrá algo muy bonito, pero no sabe cómo ponerlas.

REPLYING 3 MYTHS ABOUT INDIA

3 Biggest Misconceptions About India

Despite its huge size and population, there are several common misconceptions about India.

By Akhilesh Pillalamarri (www.thediplomat.com)

December 31, 2014

As we near the end of the year, I would like to reflect on a few of the biggest misconceptions I’ve noticed people, even those interested in South Asia, have about the region, especially India. As a writer on South Asian issues, I found that some of these most common recurring misconceptions included the following:

Most Indians are Vegetarian. This is a common misconception held by many non-Indians and Indians as well. In fact, most Hindus also eat meat. Around 60 percent of Indians eat meat and the percentage is growing. While this still means that the world’s largest vegetarian population is in India, it also means that the majority of Indians are meat-eaters, like every other country in the world. Contrary to popular belief, the consumption of meat and vegetarianism have generally not been personal choices, though to some extent the idea of vegetarianism has been linked to a belief in non-violence. However, for the most part, vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism have been linked to notions of purity and status that distinguished different caste and subcastes from each other or are regionally colored.

Generally, vegetarianism has been associated with higher castes as it distanced an individual from the blood and gore of an earthly, labor-based existence. There are still many, many exceptions and permutations all over India, making it hard to make categorical statements about Indian eating habits. For example, most Gujarati people of any caste are vegetarian. However, not all Brahmins (members of the highest caste, traditionally associated with vegetarianism) are vegetarian, as Bengali Brahmins eat fish and Kashmiri Brahmins eat goat. Kshatriyas and Rajputs, a highly ranked caste associated with warfare and government eat meat for the most part as well. Most members of lower castes, including the Dalits (formerly known as untouchables) eat meat, including sometimes beef, but their cuisine rarely makes it to international restaurants. It is likely that the notion of most Indians being vegetarian arose due to the fact that many public gatherings and institutions serve only vegetarian food which accommodates everyone, unlike non-vegetarian food.

Additionally, the proportion of vegetarians is higher among India’s elite who mostly derive from groups that practiced vegetarianism even if they no longer follow the traditional taboos of their ancestors. In India’s segmented society, it is likely that the meat-eating practices of the majority often fail to be noticed by those who write about India and food. The point is, Indian food practices are far from homogenous.

Caste is a four tiered class system like many other hierarchical social systems around the world. While it may have originated as a class system similar to those that prevailed in many other pre-modern societies, the caste system of South Asia is totally unlike any other in the world. It pervades all religious groups in South Asia. While modernization is leading to the disappearance of caste, especially in urban areas, it is still a major factor in rural areas and in Indian politics, so it is important to understand. Many non-Indians and Indians educated in modern, urban schools fail to understand the actual nature of caste. In other to do so, it is important to not think of caste in the traditional manner it is explained in schools (including American school textbooks in their brief chapters on India). Instead, one ought to think of the caste system of being a complex system of thousands of profession-based groups that did not traditionally marry with or socialize with people outside of their group.

These groups, called jati in Sanskrit, included thousands of clans, tribes, and communities in India, all of which were self-contained and mostly interacted with other groups for economic purposes. In theory, most of these groups were classified broadly into one of four hierarchal categories, the basis of the common notion of the caste system, but it was jati that really mattered. Although an individual could not change their jati, it was possible for whole groups to improve their overall position relative to other groups. There is significant evidence that shows that in the early stages of Indian history, there was intermixing between groups and that individuals were assigned to caste on the basis of professional and merit. However, this state of affairs definitely gave way to the notion of caste described above by 2,000 years ago.

Genetic evidence shows that around 1,900 years ago, intermarriage between jatis ceased. While some barriers, such as different castes eating together have been overcome, the main prop holding caste together is the deep fear many castes have of intermarriage. Significant intermarriage would essentially dissolve the castes, which is hard for many to stomach. However, this would also be the best way to get rid of the caste system, rather than by merely abolishing it, since mixed-caste individuals would merely be members of Indian society rather than the society of their caste. All these facts point to a social dynamic that is deeply embedded in the culture of the subcontinent and can only be overcome with time. Contrary to the assertions of some apologists, caste was not created by the Mughals or British to control India; such deeply held notions do not have such recent and shallow roots.

Indian history is false. A very common theme among South Asia commentators is that Indian history is false, or has been deliberately misinterpreted by people with “vested interests.” This particularly refers to historical theories about the veracity of events described in ancient Indian religious scriptures, the origin ofIndian Civilization, and the role of Muslims and Europeans in later Indian history. The common theme among people with these sets of beliefs is that Indian history is deliberately being written to minimalize the contributions and achievements of Indian civilization and its people. As there are obviously many gaps in Indian history, this idea relies on the notion that ancient Indian civilization must have been the most advanced and ancient in the world.

The alternative on the other hand, many non-nationalistic historians have an unimaginative ideological variation of Indian history that relies heavily on Marxist ideas of history that are simply not relevant to Indian history. Without commenting on the veracity or lack thereof of these notions of history, I will say that an objective methodology and idea of history for South Asia needs to be established. Most scholars of India deeply love their subject and most certainly do not have any “agenda” other than the establishment of accurate information. There are currently many objective histories of India both online and offline that interpret the history of India and describe the methods used to do so. This scientific criteria will undoubtedly prove that Indian culture and history are even more amazing than currently believed and that there is no need to exaggerate its considerable achievements. On the other hand, they will also prove that India is a civilization like many others, flawed and backwards in some ways, advanced in other ways, and perhaps not as ancient or glorious as some nationalists would like to believe. But that is the purpose of objective history.

ISIS AND WAHHABISM

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

ALASTAIR CROOKE, THE HUFFINGTON POST Posted: 08/27/2014 11:56 am EDT 

BEIRUT -- The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?"

It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan -- please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.

Many Saudis are deeply disturbed by the radical doctrines of Da'ish (ISIS) -- and are beginning to question some aspects of Saudi Arabia's direction and discourse.

THE SAUDI DUALITY

Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins.

One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader -- amongst many -- of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.)

The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz's subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s: his curbing of Ikhwani violence (in order to have diplomatic standing as a nation-state with Britain and America); his institutionalization of the original Wahhabist impulse -- and the subsequent seizing of the opportunely surging petrodollar spigot in the 1970s, to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home towards export -- by diffusing a cultural revolution, rather than violent revolution throughout the Muslim world.

But this "cultural revolution" was no docile reformism. It was a revolution based on Abd al-Wahhab's Jacobin-like hatred for the putrescence and deviationism that he perceived all about him -- hence his call to purge Islam of all its heresies and idolatries.

MUSLIM IMPOSTORS

The American author and journalist, Steven Coll, has written how this austere and censorious disciple of the 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab, despised "the decorous, arty, tobacco smoking, hashish imbibing, drum pounding Egyptian and Ottoman nobility who travelled across Arabia to pray at Mecca."

In Abd al-Wahhab's view, these were not Muslims; they were imposters masquerading as Muslims. Nor, indeed, did he find the behavior of local Bedouin Arabs much better. They aggravated Abd al-Wahhab by their honoring of saints, by their erecting of tombstones, and their "superstition" (e.g. revering graves or places that were deemed particularly imbued with the divine).

All this behavior, Abd al-Wahhab denounced as bida -- forbidden by God.

Like Taymiyyah before him, Abd al-Wahhab believed that the period of the Prophet Muhammad's stay in Medina was the ideal of Muslim society (the "best of times"), to which all Muslims should aspire to emulate (this, essentially, is Salafism).

Taymiyyah had declared war on Shi'ism, Sufism and Greek philosophy. He spoke out, too against visiting the grave of the prophet and the celebration of his birthday, declaring that all such behavior represented mere imitation of the Christian worship of Jesus as God (i.e. idolatry). Abd al-Wahhab assimilated all this earlier teaching, stating that "any doubt or hesitation" on the part of a believer in respect to his or her acknowledging this particular interpretation of Islam should "deprive a man of immunity of his property and his life."

One of the main tenets of Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine has become the key idea of takfir.Under the takfiri doctrine, Abd al-Wahhab and his followers could deem fellow Muslims infidels should they engage in activities that in any way could be said to encroach on the sovereignty of the absolute Authority (that is, the King). Abd al-Wahhab denounced all Muslims who honored the dead, saints, or angels. He held that such sentiments detracted from the complete subservience one must feel towards God, and only God. Wahhabi Islam thus bans any prayer to saints and dead loved ones, pilgrimages to tombs and special mosques, religious festivals celebrating saints, the honoring of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's birthday, and even prohibits the use of gravestones when burying the dead.

"Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. "

Abd al-Wahhab demanded conformity -- a conformity that was to be demonstrated in physical and tangible ways. He argued that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader (a Caliph, if there were one). Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. The list of apostates meriting death included the Shiite, Sufis and other Muslim denominations, whom Abd al-Wahhab did not consider to be Muslim at all. 

There is nothing here that separates Wahhabism from ISIS. The rift would emerge only later: from the subsequent institutionalization of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab's doctrine of "One Ruler, One Authority, One Mosque" -- these three pillars being taken respectively to refer to the Saudi king, the absolute authority of official Wahhabism, and its control of "the word" (i.e. the mosque). 

It is this rift -- the ISIS denial of these three pillars on which the whole of Sunni authority presently rests -- makes ISIS, which in all other respects conforms to Wahhabism, a deep threat to Saudi Arabia. 

BRIEF HISTORY 1741- 1818 

Abd al-Wahhab's advocacy of these ultra radical views inevitably led to his expulsion from his own town -- and in 1741, after some wanderings, he found refuge under the protection of Ibn Saud and his tribe. What Ibn Saud perceived in Abd al-Wahhab's novel teaching was the means to overturn Arab tradition and convention. It was a path to seizing power. 

"Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. "

Ibn Saud's clan, seizing on Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine, now could do what they always did, which was raiding neighboring villages and robbing them of their possessions. Only now they were doing it not within the ambit of Arab tradition, but rather under the banner of jihad. Ibn Saud and Abd al-Wahhab also reintroduced the idea of martyrdom in the name of jihad, as it granted those martyred immediate entry into paradise. 

In the beginning, they conquered a few local communities and imposed their rule over them. (The conquered inhabitants were given a limited choice: conversion to Wahhabism or death.) By 1790, the Alliance controlled most of the Arabian Peninsula and repeatedly raided Medina, Syria and Iraq. 

Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. In 1801, the Allies attacked the Holy City of Karbala in Iraq. They massacred thousands of Shiites, including women and children. Many Shiite shrines were destroyed, including the shrine of Imam Hussein, the murdered grandson of Prophet Muhammad. 

A British official, Lieutenant Francis Warden, observing the situation at the time, wrote: "They pillaged the whole of it [Karbala], and plundered the Tomb of Hussein... slaying in the course of the day, with circumstances of peculiar cruelty, above five thousand of the inhabitants ..." 

Osman Ibn Bishr Najdi, the historian of the first Saudi state, wrote that Ibn Saud committed a massacre in Karbala in 1801. He proudly documented that massacre saying, "we took Karbala and slaughtered and took its people (as slaves), then praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and we do not apologize for that and say: 'And to the unbelievers: the same treatment.'" 

In 1803, Abdul Aziz then entered the Holy City of Mecca, which surrendered under the impact of terror and panic (the same fate was to befall Medina, too). Abd al-Wahhab's followers demolished historical monuments and all the tombs and shrines in their midst. By the end, they had destroyed centuries of Islamic architecture near the Grand Mosque. 

But in November of 1803, a Shiite assassin killed King Abdul Aziz (taking revenge for the massacre at Karbala). His son, Saud bin Abd al Aziz, succeeded him and continued the conquest of Arabia. Ottoman rulers, however, could no longer just sit back and watch as their empire was devoured piece by piece. In 1812, the Ottoman army, composed of Egyptians, pushed the Alliance out from Medina, Jeddah and Mecca. In 1814, Saud bin Abd al Aziz died of fever. His unfortunate son Abdullah bin Saud, however, was taken by the Ottomans to Istanbul, where he was gruesomely executed (a visitor to Istanbul reported seeing him having been humiliated in the streets of Istanbul for three days, then hanged and beheaded, his severed head fired from a canon, and his heart cut out and impaled on his body). 

In 1815, Wahhabi forces were crushed by the Egyptians (acting on the Ottoman's behalf) in a decisive battle. In 1818, the Ottomans captured and destroyed the Wahhabi capital of Dariyah. The first Saudi state was no more. The few remaining Wahhabis withdrew into the desert to regroup, and there they remained, quiescent for most of the 19th century. 

HISTORY RETURNS WITH ISIS 

It is not hard to understand how the founding of the Islamic State by ISIS in contemporary Iraq might resonate amongst those who recall this history. Indeed, the ethos of 18th century Wahhabism did not just wither in Nejd, but it roared back into life when the Ottoman Empire collapsed amongst the chaos of World War I. 

The Al Saud -- in this 20th century renaissance -- were led by the laconic and politically astute Abd-al Aziz, who, on uniting the fractious Bedouin tribes, launched the Saudi "Ikhwan" in the spirit of Abd-al Wahhab's and Ibn Saud's earlier fighting proselytisers. 

The Ikhwan was a reincarnation of the early, fierce, semi-independent vanguard movement of committed armed Wahhabist "moralists" who almost had succeeded in seizing Arabia by the early 1800s. In the same manner as earlier, the Ikhwan again succeeded in capturing Mecca, Medina and Jeddah between 1914 and 1926. Abd-al Aziz, however, began to feel his wider interests to be threatened by the revolutionary "Jacobinism" exhibited by the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan revolted -- leading to a civil war that lasted until the 1930s, when the King had them put down: he machine-gunned them. 

For this king, (Abd-al Aziz), the simple verities of previous decades were eroding. Oil was being discovered in the peninsular. Britain and America were courting Abd-al Aziz, but still were inclined to support Sharif Husain as the only legitimate ruler of Arabia. The Saudis needed to develop a more sophisticated diplomatic posture. 

So Wahhabism was forcefully changed from a movement of revolutionary jihad and theological takfiri purification, to a movement of conservative social, political, theological, and religious da'wa (Islamic call) and to justifying the institution that upholds loyalty to the royal Saudi family and the King's absolute power. 

OIL WEALTH SPREAD WAHHABISM 

With the advent of the oil bonanza -- as the French scholar, Giles Kepel writes, Saudi goals were to "reach out and spread Wahhabism across the Muslim world ... to "Wahhabise" Islam, thereby reducing the "multitude of voices within the religion" to a "single creed" -- a movement which would transcend national divisions. Billions of dollars were -- and continue to be -- invested in this manifestation of soft power. 

It was this heady mix of billion dollar soft power projection -- and the Saudi willingness to manage Sunni Islam both to further America's interests, as it concomitantly embedded Wahhabism educationally, socially and culturally throughout the lands of Islam -- that brought into being a western policy dependency on Saudi Arabia, a dependency that has endured since Abd-al Aziz's meeting with Roosevelt on a U.S. warship (returning the president from the Yalta Conference) until today. 

Westerners looked at the Kingdom and their gaze was taken by the wealth; by the apparent modernization; by the professed leadership of the Islamic world. They chose to presume that the Kingdom was bending to the imperatives of modern life -- and that the management of Sunni Islam would bend the Kingdom, too, to modern life.

"On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra radical in a different way. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism."

But the Saudi Ikhwan approach to Islam did not die in the 1930s. It retreated, but it maintained its hold over parts of the system -- hence the duality that we observe today in the Saudi attitude towards ISIS.

On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra radical in a different way. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism.

ISIS is a "post-Medina" movement: it looks to the actions of the first two Caliphs, rather than the Prophet Muhammad himself, as a source of emulation, and it forcefully denies the Saudis' claim of authority to rule.

As the Saudi monarchy blossomed in the oil age into an ever more inflated institution, the appeal of the Ikhwan message gained ground (despite King Faisal's modernization campaign). The "Ikhwan approach" enjoyed -- and still enjoys -- the support of many prominent men and women and sheikhs. In a sense, Osama bin Laden was precisely the representative of a late flowering of this Ikhwani approach.

Today, ISIS' undermining of the legitimacy of the King's legitimacy is not seen to be problematic, but rather a return to the true origins of the Saudi-Wahhab project.

In the collaborative management of the region by the Saudis and the West in pursuit of the many western projects (countering socialism, Ba'athism, Nasserism, Soviet and Iranian influence), western politicians have highlighted their chosen reading of Saudi Arabia (wealth, modernization and influence), but they chose to ignore the Wahhabist impulse.

After all, the more radical Islamist movements were perceived by Western intelligence services as being more effective in toppling the USSR in Afghanistan -- and in combatting out-of-favor Middle Eastern leaders and states.

Why should we be surprised then, that from Prince Bandar's Saudi-Western mandate to manage the insurgency in Syria against President Assad should have emerged a neo-Ikhwan type of violent, fear-inducing vanguard movement: ISIS? And why should we be surprised -- knowing a little about Wahhabism -- that "moderate" insurgents in Syria would become rarer than a mythical unicorn? Why should we have imagined that radical Wahhabism would create moderates? Or why could we imagine that a doctrine of "One leader, One authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed" could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance?

Or, perhaps, we never imagined.

THE LEFTIST DEMOCRAT

La izquierda del partido demócrata desafía a Hillary Clinton

El ‘nuevo populismo’ de la senadora Elizabeth Warren se enfrenta a Wall Street y al ‘establishment’ de la formación política del presidente Barack Obama

MARC BASSETS diario el pais, madridWashington 30 DIC 2014

Hillary Clinton es la estrella indiscutida del Partido Demócrata, la candidata a suceder a Barack Obama en la Casa Blanca tras las elecciones presidenciales de 2016. Mas la estrella ideológica del partido del mandatario es otra. Elizabeth Warren, senadora por Massachusetts desde 2013, es la voz más combativa contra Wall Street, el Partido Republicano y el establishment demócrata identificado con el matrimonio Clinton.

Warren descarta disputar a Clinton la nominación demócrata. Lo repite en cada entrevista. Pero hay que tomar sus palabras con cautela. Primero, porque no es insólito que, hasta que un político declare su candidatura, asegure que él no es candidato: no lo es, pero quizá lo sea. Y segundo, porque aunque no se presente —personas cercanas a la senadora sostienen que no lo hará— ha logrado definir los términos del debate en el Partido Demócrata y ha forzado a Clinton a abordar cuestiones que hasta hace poco no figuraban en su agenda, como las desigualdades y los excesos de Wall Street.Es probable que en los próximos meses Hillary Clinton —exsecretaria de Estado, exsenadora, ex primera dama y aspirante fallida a la Casa Blanca en 2008— anuncie su candidatura. Los sondeos la consagran como la principal opción para competir por el Partido Demócrata e incluso como la favorita en las elecciones presidenciales que la enfrentarán al contendiente por el Partido Republicano. La potencia de su candidatura es indudable: tras la elección, en 2008, del primer presidente negro, Estados Unidos elegiría a la primera mujer.

“Ella me ha dicho a mí y a mucha otra gente que no será candidata”, dice Roger Hickey, codirector de la Campaña para el Futuro de América, una organización adscrita a la izquierda demócrata. “Pero incluso sin presentarse a la presidencia, Elizabeth [Warren] impulsa a los demócratas y Hillary Clinton hacia una dirección más progresista. Hillary está aprendiendo del liderazgo de Elizabeth”. 

El 72% de los norteamericanos creen que la recesión no ha terminado, pese a que la economía crece a su nivel más alto en 11 años

El itinerario de Warren es atípico. De 65 años y profesora de Derecho, se especializó en el endeudamiento privado y las bancarrotas familiares. Publicaba libros como The two-income trap, (La trampa del doble ingreso, Basic Books, 2004), que mezclaba el estudio de las finanzas familiares con consejos sobre cómo gestionarlas mejor. La suya era una disciplina técnica y poco mediática, hasta que estalló la crisis en 2008 y el endeudamiento de los norteamericanos y las prácticas abusivas de los bancos ocuparon de repente el centro de la discusión sobre las causas y las soluciones de la emergencia.

El demócrata Obama adoptó la propuesta de Warren para crear un organismo de protección del consumidor de productos financieros, destinada a evitar que se repitiesen estafas como las de las hipotecas basura. Warren debía presidir la nueva institución, la Oficina de Protección Financiera del Consumidor, pero el previsible veto en el Senado de los republicanos y los recelos de algunos demócratas cercanos a Wall Street frustraron la candidatura. Warren se convirtió en la voz de la conciencia de la izquierda que atribuye a Wall Street la responsabilidad de la recesión y reprochaba a Obama su timidez a la hora de reformar el sistema financiero.

“El juego está trucado”, dice Warren en sus discursos. “Trucado”, añade en sus memorias —A fighting chance (Una oportunidad de lucha, MacMillan, 2014)— “en favor de los que tienen dinero y poder”. “Las grandes corporaciones”, argumenta, “contratan a ejércitos de lobistas para obtener exenciones de miles de millones de dólares en el sistema impositivo y persuadir a sus amigos en el Congreso de que apoyen leyes que inclinan las reglas del juego a su favor. Mientras tanto, a las familias que trabajan duro se les dice que tendrán que vivir con sueños más modestos para sus hijos”.

Warren no rehúye la etiqueta de populista, una palabra que en EE UU carece de las connotaciones negativas que tiene en Europa o América Latina. En la tradición norteamericana, significa la defensa del pueblo frente a las élites. Hickey opina que el populismo económico de la senadora por Massachusetts —el norteamericano de pie frente a los bancos y las corporaciones— puede apelar a las clases trabajadoras blancas de la América interior, distanciadas del Partido Demócrata de Obama.

Porque Warren es progresista, pero busca un votante transversal, a las clases medias que no se benefician de la recuperación. Aunque técnicamente la recesión terminó en 2009, el 72% de los norteamericanos cree que la recesión no ha acabado, según un sondeo reciente. Desde entonces la tasa de paro se ha reducido a menos del 6% y la economía crece al nivel más alto de los últimos 11 años. Si decidiese desafiar a Hillary Clinton en las primarias demócratas, sus posibilidades de derrotarla serían escasas, pero sus ideas marcan el tono la campaña demócrata para suceder a Obama.

Article « Novorossiya « Commentary Magazine

Article « Novorossiya « Commentary Magazine

RELIGION AND CULTURE MATTER

What the world values, in one chart

VOX

Updated by Brandon Ambrosino on December 29, 2014, 1:00 p.m. ET @BrandonAmbro brandon@vox.com

The more globalized our world becomes, the more we learn about similarities and differences that cut across all cultures.

These things are sometimes easy to trace on a small scale. For instance, it's easy to chart the religious differences between, say, Indonesia and China. In 2000, 98 percent of Indonesians said religion was important to them compared to just 3 percent of Chinese citizens who said the same thing, according to WVS. But not every cultural comparison is that easy to make.

Two professors, however, are finding ways to compare how our values differ on a global scale.

Using data from the World Values Survey (WVS), professors Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan and Christian Welzel of Germany's Luephana University comprised this amazing Cultural Map of the World.

The Ingelhart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World. (NB: the green cluster in the center of the map is unmarked, but is labeled South Asian.)

What you're seeing is a scatter plot charting how values compare across nine different clusters (English-speaking, Catholic Europe, Islamic, etc.). The y-axis tracks traditional values, versus secular-rational values.

What do those terms mean? According to WVS, traditional values (the bottom of the y-axis) emphasize religion, traditional family values, parent-child ties, and nationalism. Those with these values tend to reject abortion, euthanasia, and divorce. On the other hand, those with secular rational values (the top of the y-axis) place less preference on religion and traditional authority, and are more accepting of abortion and divorce.

The x-axis tracks survival values versus self-expression values. Survival values emphasize economic and physical security and are linked with ethnocentrism and low levels of tolerance. Self-expression values, according to WVS, "give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life."

WVS offers this admittedly simplified analysis of the plot:

... following an increase in standards of living, and a transit from development country via industrialization to post-industrial knowledge society, a country tends to move diagonally in the direction from lower-left corner (poor) to upper-right corner (rich), indicating a transit in both dimensions.

However, the attitudes among the population are also highly correlated with the philosophical, political and religious ideas that have been dominating in the country. Secular-rational values and materialism were formulated by philosophers and the left-wing politics side in the French revolution, and can consequenlty be observed especially in countries with a long history of social democratic or socialistic policy, and in countries where a large portion of the population have studied philisophy and science at universities. Survival values are characteristic for eastern-world countries and self-expression values for western-world countries. In a liberal post-industrial economy, an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival and freedom of thought for granted, resulting in that self-expression is highly valued.

The map, known as the Inglehart-Welzel map, was published in 2010, and was based on data published by the WVS between 1995 and 2009. The WVS "is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed," according to its website. It's been around since 1981 and has surveyed over 400,000 respondents in more than 100 countries.

Congreso de la Nación Argentina / Argentine National Congress - Buenos A...

HOW DO YOU EVALUATE OBAMA?

5 WORST U.S. PRESIDENTS OF ALL TIME

by Robert W. Merry

THE NATIONAL INTEREST,

November 5.

In the spring of 2006, midway through George W. Bush’s second presidential term, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz published a piece in Rolling Stone that posed a provocative question: Was Bush the worst president ever? He said the best-case scenario for Bush was "colossal historical disgrace’’ and added: "Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history."

The Wilentz assessment was probably a bit premature. It is difficult to judge any president’s historical standing while he still sits in the Oval Office, when political passions of the day are swirling around him with such intensity. And yet the Founding Fathers, in creating our system of government, invited all of us to assess our elected leaders on an ongoing basis, and so interim judgments are fair game, however harsh or favorable. 

Which raises a question for today: How will Barack Obama be viewed in history? Will he be among the greats? Or will he fall into the category of faltering failures?

Before we delve into that question, perhaps some discussion would be in order on what in fact constitutes presidential failure and how we arrive at historical assessments of it. First, consider the difference between failure of omission and failure of commission. The first is when a president fails to deal with a crisis thrust upon him by events beyond his control. James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln’s predecessor, comes to mind. He didn’t create the slavery crisis that threatened to engulf the nation. Yet he proved incapable of dealing with it in any effective way. In part this was because he was a man who lacked character and hence couldn’t get beyond his own narrow political interests as the country he was charged with leading slipped ever deeper into crisis. And in part this was simply because he lacked the tools to grapple effectively with such a massive threat to the nation.

But, whatever the underlying contributors to his failure, there is no denying that his was a failed presidency. It was a failure of omission.

A failure of commission is when a president actually generates the crisis through his own wrong-headed actions. That could describe Woodrow Wilson in his second term, from 1917 to 1921. He not only manipulated neutrality policies to get the United States into World War I but he then used the war as an excuse to transform American society in ways that proved highly deleterious. He nationalized the telegraph, telephone and railroad industries, along with the distribution of coal. The government undertook the direct construction of merchant ships and bought and sold farm goods. A military draft was instituted. Individual and corporate income tax rates surged. Dissent was suppressed by the notorious Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who vigorously prosecuted opposition voices under severe new laws.

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One result from many of these policies was that the economy flipped out of control. Inflation surged into double-digit territory. Gross Domestic Product plummeted nearly 6.5 percent in two years. Racial and labor riots spread across the land. The American people responded with a harsh electoral judgment, rejecting Wilson’s Democratic Party at the next election and giving Warren G. Harding, hardly a distinguished personage, fully 60.3 percent of the popular vote. In addition, Republicans picked up sixty-three House seats and eleven in the Senate. The country has seen few political repudiations of such magnitude.

That’s failure of commission. Although historians have given Wilson a far higher ranking in academic polls than he would seem to deserve, it’s difficult to argue with the collective electorate when it delivers such a harsh judgment. If we assume that our system works, then the electoral assessment must be credited with at least some degree of seriousness.

Getting back to George W. Bush, his foreign policy would almost have to be considered a failure, and it was a failure of commission. He wasn’t responsible for the 9/11 attack in any meaningful way, of course, but his response—sending the U.S. military into the lands of Islam with the mission of remaking Islamic societies in the image of Western democracy—was delusional and doomed. One need only read today’s headlines, with forces aligned with Al Qaeda taking over significant swaths of territory within Iraq, to see Bush’s failure in stark relief.

In addition, Bush’s wars sapped resources and threw the nation’s budget into deficit. The president made no effort to inject fiscal austerity into governmental operations, eschewing his primary weapon of budgetary discipline, the veto pen. The national debt shot up, and economic growth began a steady decline, culminating in negative growth in the 2008 campaign year. The devastating financial crisis erupted on his watch.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that Bush belongs in the category of the country’s five worst presidents, along with such perennial bottom-dwellers, in the academic polls, as Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore. Harding also occupies that territory in these polls, but it’s difficult to credit such an assessment, given that he quickly dealt successfully with all the problems bequeathed to him by Wilson and presided over robust economic growth and relative societal stability.

Thus do we come to one man’s assessment (mine) of the five worst presidents of our heritage (in ascending order): Buchanan, Pierce, Wilson, G. W. Bush and Fillmore.

Is it conceivable that Obama could descend to such a reputational depth? It depends, in large measure, on the outcome of the effort to salvage and bolster the president’s profoundly troubled Affordable Care Act. There’s no doubt that, in domestic policy, the Obama presidency will be defined by that single issue. And, if it destabilizes the nation’s health-care system and the overall economy to the extent that some are predicting, the president’s historical reputation will be severely affected. And this failure, if it emerges, will be viewed as one of commission, not of omission.

On the other hand, if the Obamacare system is righted and the country ultimately manages to transition smoothly into a new health-care era, the president’s historical reputation will be salvaged. As it appears now, absent some powerful new development in American politics (which never can be ruled out), Obama’s historical standing will rise or fall with Obamacare.

But one thing we know: Neither the judgment of history nor the judgment of the electorate will be rendered with any degree of sentiment or sympathy. As Lincoln said, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."

Robert W. Merry is political editor of The National Interest and the author of books on American history and foreign policy. His most recent book is Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians.

Image: White House/Flickr.

Editor's Note: This piece was posted in January and is being reposted due to popular interest.